The suborbital spaceship VSS Unity breaks an altitude record – News of July 31, 2018 – Virgin Galactic is coming back from a failed 2014 test that cost the life of a pilot. The suborbital spaceship VSS Unity has just broken an altitude record after being dropped by its carrier aircraft. The carrier aircraft ignited…
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The TESS space telescope begins its observations – News of July 31, 2018 – TESS, the small observatory of NASA, has just started its observations. Last April, TESS was launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After a gravitational assistance maneuver around the Moon, the space observatory placed itself in an elliptical orbit around the…
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Chile’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) photographs a protoplanetary disk – News of July 10, 2018 – In the last few decades, a planetary system creation model has been established. It explains that in the creation of the solar system and other systems that we can observe come from a gravitational collapse in a molecular cloud,…
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– News of May 3, 2015 – Samantha Cristoforetti was the first Italian woman to go into space, in the International Space Station (ISS). Like most astronauts, she was a bit homesick, and she could not really rely on the food or drinks usually consumed by astronauts to bring her some comfort. But thanks to…
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A space drone will soon fly into the atmosphere of Venus – News of July 10, 2018 – A helicopter drone will be sent by NASA to Mars in 2020. Beyond the technical feat, the control of atmospheric flight on other objects of the solar system could open the way to a new type of…
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The thrust of the EMDrive engine explained by a measurement error? – News of May 29, 2018 – In recent years, the EMDrive engine has fascinated everyone interested in space propulsion. EMDrive is an engine devised by the British physicist Roger Scheuer. This physicist says that this engine is capable of producing a thrust without…
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The US space shuttle program was a serious threat to the USSR The US space shuttle program, stopped in 2011, has entered popular culture. Nowadays, the concept of space shuttle is partly taken over by space vehicles like the Boeing X-37B or the ESA Space Rider, but without crew. In the past, a space shuttle…
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Trump confirms the future creation of the US Space Force in a context of international espionage – News of June 19, 2018 – President Trump gave a speech during the third session of his National Council of Space. The US president reiterated his desire to create the US Space Force as the sixth branch of…
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Long March 9 will fly to the Moon in the 2030s – News of March 27, 2018 – Since the mid-2010s, the Chinese government has been deploying its second generation of launchers, called Long March. These launchers are able to place between 700 kg and 23 tons in low orbit. For now, the heaviest launcher…
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The development of VASIMR continues under the control of NASA – News of August 15, 2017 – Ad Astra Rocket was established in 2005 by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz. Ad Astra Rocket is working on one project in particular : the VASIMR plasma engine. Franklin Chang-Diaz made seven flights in the Space Shuttle. He…
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End of suspense about Tabby star – News of January 9, 2018 – Since September 2015, the Tabby star is subject to significant drops in brightness difficult to explain. Astronomers are accustomed to drops in brightness. When observing stars, the drops in luminosity are due, for example, to interactions with the atmosphere, or even to…
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James Webb space telescope tests continue, launch is still scheduled for 2021 – News of June 4, 2019 – The James Webb Space Telescope is now almost better known for its delays and incremental costs than for the incredible discovery potential it promises. On May 30, a new NASA press release says James Webb has…
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Bigelow Aerospace’s BEAM module will be used as storage space for ISS – News of December 12, 2017 – Since spring 2016, the International Space Station (ISS) has been hosting the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), an inflatable module of the American company Bigelow Aerospace. BEAM was until now in test phase. It was closed…
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2019 : a start for the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway (LOP-G) ? – News of March 3, 2018 – The year 2019 should mark the departure of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project, NASA’s next space station and the first beyond the low orbit. Indeed the first contract for the construction of modules of the Lunar…
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Orbital ATK’s space tug extends the lifespan of satellites – News of March 20, 2018 – At the Satellite 2018 conference, the US company Orbital ATK presented its plans to rescue end-of-life satellites for a fee. Orbital ATK and its subsidiary Space Logistics already sells the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV), a space tug that mounts…
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Kilopower has been successfully tested in the Nevada desert – News of May 15, 2018 – For most space agencies, the future of inhabited flight seems to lie on the moon’s side. The Chinese, Americans and Europeans hope to set foot on our satellite in the medium term, and why not establish a permanent base.…
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Orion, Apollo lookalike One of the main missions of the SLS, NASA’s future monster launcher, is to launch the Orion spacecraft, a little different from the capsules that Microsoft Boeing and SpaceX have created for NASA. Indeed, Orion is primarily thought for the missions beyond the low orbit, which is new since the Apollo program.…
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Breakthrough Starshot develops an interstellar solar sail powered by laser – News of June 27, 2017 – Breakthrough Starshot is a laser propulsion system project to send micro-probes to our stellar neighborhood at 20% of the speed of light. Huge technological challenges arise, which is why the research plan is spread over 30 years. A…
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1000 ITS to colonize Mars – News of June 20, 2017 – SpaceX has just posted a fairly complete overview of the ITS and its mission plan. SpaceX wants to offer a delivery to Mars at a cost of $ 140,000 per ton. The ticket to Mars would probably be less than $ 100,000. The…
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Made In Space wants to print space stations in orbit – News of June 20, 2017 – The construction of the International Space Station (ISS) has been a huge technological challenge requiring decades of effort and participation from many countries. It was necessary to bring the different parts of the station one by one for…
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Princeton wants to boost the plasma engine with nuclear fusion – News of June 13, 2017 – The US laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, has been awarded two research grants by NASA to fund research on the design of a space engine involving nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is a bit like the holy grail of…
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ISRO launches the GSLV MK III – News of June 6, 2017 – The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Indian space agency, has just commissioned a new medium-sized launcher: the GSLV MK III (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III), also known as LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3). Its launch capacity is 10 tons in…
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XS-1 will guarantee space access to the US military – News of May 30, 2017 – It is sometimes difficult to navigate among all the space departments of the American government. There is of course NASA, which handles most of the space effort of Washington, but many parts of the US military also maintain an…
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– News of May 1, 2018 – With the release of the second catalog of Gaia, we will probably be able to add a few thousand exoplanets to our inventory in the coming years. Now that the discovery of extra-solar worlds has become a banality, we must go on to the next stage, that is,…
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– News of May 1, 2018 – The reusable rocket is a subject that divides. There are two approaches: those who are cautious and who are waiting to see, like Europe, and those who seem convinced of the soundness of technology and are already developing their reusable rockets, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. The…
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– News from May 1, 2018 – The Long March 8 rocket was originally intended as an average launcher. It was thought to offer an intermediate capability between Long March 6 and Long March 7. But it seems that Beijing has new plans for this rocket: the first stage of the rocket would return to…
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– News of May 17, 2017 – Located 10 light-years from Earth, the solar system Epsilon Eridani fascinates astronomers. First, its relative proximity to our solar system makes it particularly easy to study. We already know that there are two asteroid belts and a large disk of debris. Astronomers have also suspected for several years…
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– News of May 17, 2017 – KuangChi Science is working on an original solution to offer tourists a glimpse of space: a capsule suspended from a helium balloon capable of taking six passengers between 30km and 100km. Technically, we are at the border of space but the initiative is still to be welcomed. The…
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Shuji Ogawa is the CEO of the Japanese company PD Aerospace. Mr. Ogawa is working with his teams to develop a space plane capable of carrying six passengers to more than 100 kilometers above sea level, so technically in space. He thinks he can start the tests in 2020 for a first commercial flight in…
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News: – May 10, 2017 – The US Air Force and its huge budget is responsible for developing the potential military applications of space on behalf of the US government. We had the example this week with the return of the X-37B robotic space shuttle on Earth. The vehicle built by Boeing and operated by…
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